Chinanews.com, Wulanchabu, December 6th, title: Zhuozi in Inner Mongolia: Ten Fingers Spring Breeze Generates Prosperity and Embroidery Millennium Has New Traditions
Chinanews reporter Zhang Linhu
Natural and simple insoles, vivid pendants, distinctive sachets... Walking into the local workshop of "Pear Blossom Embroidery" in Zhuozi County, Ulanqab City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, all kinds of hand-embroidered products come into view.
Xu Yinmei and her sisters sat around the table, talking and laughing while exchanging patterns and colors, and exchanging needle techniques.
Colorful hand-embroidered items and smiling faces add radiance to each other, adding a sense of agility and harmony to the cold winter day.
The picture shows the embroiderers smiling happily.
Photo courtesy of Ding Ruifeng
It is worth mentioning that most of these works are made by embroiderers who are unable to participate in public welfare positions due to physical or age reasons. They use a pair of skillful hands to transform "fingertip art" into "fingertip economy" and "embroidery" to Satisfactory income, "embroider" a happy life.
Xu Yinmei told the reporter that a pair of insoles can earn 40 yuan in manual fees, and she can embroider a pair in an average of 3 days, earning more than 4,000 yuan a year.
The picture shows Ding Ruifeng introducing the "Pear Blossom Embroidery" insole.
Photo courtesy of Ding Ruifeng
"I have embroidered insoles with my mother since I was a child, and now I can do what I like and earn some money to subsidize the family. I can kill two birds with one stone." In Xu Yinmei's view, all this is thanks to Ding Ruifeng, vice chairman of the Women's Federation of Zhuozi County.
Zhuozi County March 8 Red Banner Bearer, Inner Mongolia Outstanding Communist Party Member, National Advanced Individual in Poverty Alleviation... The Ding Ruifeng in Xu Yinmei's mouth can gather many honors in one body, which stems from her unremitting efforts and silent persistence on the battlefield of poverty alleviation.
Zhuozi County is located at the southeast foot of the Yinshan Mountains on the Inner Mongolia Plateau, an area with many hills and few plains.
Many mountains, deep gullies, barren land, and a large population of old, weak, sick and disabled make Zhuozi County a national-level poverty-stricken county.
During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, Zhuozi County's ex situ poverty alleviation and relocation is the main battlefield for poverty alleviation. In the county, 5 centralized resettlement sites for ex situ relocation have been built, and 4,520 households who are deeply impoverished due to dilapidated houses, difficult drinking water, and inconvenient transportation 11,125 people moved out of the deep mountains and ditch to integrate into urban life.
However, the elderly accounted for 65% of the relocated households. They cannot engage in heavy physical labor and cannot leave home to work to increase their income. They are prone to return to poverty and become poor.
In order to consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation and enhance the endogenous development motivation of the people who have been lifted out of poverty, Zhuozi County and Chaoyang District of Beijing continue to pay attention to the follow-up industrial support for relocation during the process of Beijing-Mongolia cooperation.
In August 2021, Ding Ruifeng became a village cadre in Xiaotucheng Village, Lihua Town, Zhuozi County.
As soon as she took office, she started to set up the "Pear Blossom Embroidery" local workshop. She also donated 10,000 yuan as a bonus for outstanding party members in Inner Mongolia, and led the relocated households to make hand-embroidered insoles.
For Ding Ruifeng, leading the relocated households to increase their income has long been at his fingertips.
As early as during the relocation period, Ding Ruifeng innovatively proposed the "three-stage lottery" housing allocation method, which properly resettled 7,396 relocated households in 3,133 households; she summed up the "seven-step method" for relocation and employment, and solved the employment problem for 4,305 relocated households .
In 2019, the "Skillful Hands" poverty alleviation workshop she managed was rated as the "National Demonstration Base for Women's Poverty Alleviation".
The picture shows the pre-job training of the "Pear Blossom Embroidery" rural workshop.
Photo courtesy of Ding Ruifeng
In March 2022, the "Pear Blossom Embroidery" local workshop was officially established.
The workshop changes the original planting structure of the relocated households into a manual workshop model, and adopts the method of nearby employment and piece-based payment, so that they can achieve flexible employment and increase income without leaving the community.
"The workshop has grown from 12 people to 84 people, all of whom are relocated households. The average age is 65 years old, 18 people are over 70 years old, and 53 people have been lifted out of poverty." Ding Ruifeng said.
According to historical records, "Pear Blossom Embroidery" has a history of more than 1,400 years. It is a unique handmade cloth art that was owned by the Han people in the ancient city of Wuyao, the nomadic Turkic people in the surrounding areas, and even the Yellow River Basin in the early days.
The workmanship of "Pear Blossom Embroidery" insoles is complicated. It needs to use flour to make pulp, use cotton and linen fabrics for lining, cut insole patterns, veneer, embroider edges, draw patterns, color matching and flower drawing, embroidery, and uniform embroidery. Embroidered with thousands of stitches.
The picture shows Xing Jing (second from left) exchanging skills with embroidery workers.
Photo courtesy of Ding Ruifeng
"No matter in terms of quality or function, traditional handmade fabric embroidery insoles are far superior to ordinary insoles. I believe that in the near future, we will definitely carry forward the 'Pear Blossom Embroidery' and embroider a golden road to prosperity." Ding Ruifeng said .
While inheriting the ancient method of "Pear Blossom Embroidery", the workshop also hired the famous "Qiao Niang" to teach skills and organize training exchanges, which greatly improved the technical level of embroidery workers.
At the same time, it also incorporates elements such as regional characteristics, humanistic feelings, and traditional Chinese culture, and successively launched new products such as "Dragon and Phoenix Prosperity", "Mongolian Cloud Pattern", and "Fuhu Yingchun", sales orders soared, and even Japanese customers loved Ssangyong Patterns, travel far and wide to order.
Considering that a single product will restrict development, adhering to the creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional culture, Xing Jing, a member of the Standing Committee of Zhuozi County Committee and deputy county magistrate of Chaoyang District, Beijing, not only guides embroidery workers to use the ancient method of "pear flower embroidery" to make traditional Chinese medicine sachets, Coasters, table runners, pendants, etc., also became a "salesman" and ran orders.
The picture shows the exquisite traditional Chinese medicine sachet.
Photo courtesy of Ding Ruifeng
"Affected by the epidemic this year, the conservative annual income exceeds 150,000 yuan." Talking about the future, Ding Ruifeng said that while continuing to innovate, let more sisters join in and increase their income together to become rich.
The picture shows the collective embroidery of the "Pear Blossom Embroidery" local workshop.
Photo courtesy of Ding Ruifeng
Ten fingers of spring breeze, one embroidered for thousands of years.
With colorful silk threads and small embroidery needles, relying on primitive and simple imagination, Lihua people embroidered the great rivers and mountains of the motherland, embroidered the yearning for a better life, and embroidered the hope for a happy future.
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